Amazon.com has long been the leader in online
application hosting, with its Amazon Web Services business. This
business allows customers to utilize Amazon's cloud computing
infrastructure to procure computing and storage resources as a utility.
In the past, web developers had two main options: use Amazon to host their applications, or host
their own applications.

Now, after a swirl of rumors, Google announced that it is
prepared to take
on Amazon in the application hosting business. Google will deploy its
new business called the Google App Engine which will allow users to write code
and deploy it. The new business promises to deliver unparalleled scaling
potential, flexing the muscle of Google's claimed 1 million servers. Many
analysts lauded the move as it provides Google another opportunity to expand
into a different business market.

Analysts think that large application hosting companies will
largely replace individual hosting for storage and deployment of web
applications. This move will save smaller companies time and hassle with
setup, system administration, and maintenance. Google's strong capacity
in the server market primes it to be able to handle the massive spikes that
frequently occur in online traffic. To combat such occurrences, Google
will also use its automatic replication and load balancing technologies, as
well as its Bigtable database system.

Another feature of Google's system that may make it more
attractive to many developers than Amazon's is the ability to use Google's
APIs. Authentication and Gmail
will be among the easy to plugin APIs as Google says "it's unnecessary
and inefficient for developers to write components like authentication and
e-mail from scratch for each new application."

Google's experience in developing its own SAAS (software as a
service) applications and dealing with their massive growth, make it a logical
fit for helping others in the applications hosting business. These
applications deal with millions of petabytes and users without a hitch, so
Google should be prepared for the worst its customers might give.

The company has been extremely secretive about its data
centers, with only a few people knowing how it works. Many speculate that
they are composed of "Hadoop, Linux and just about any piece of
open-source software that works." However, few doubt their prowess.

Google has not announced pricing yet, so this may be the
biggest deciding factor. A beta version of the service is available for
free to the first 10,000 developers to volunteer. Developers will only be
allowed 500MB of storage and enough CPU resources to handle 5 million page
views per month per application. Eventually additional bandwidth and
storage will be purchasable as the service moves out of beta.

The recommendation recommends increased user notification and
making it punishable by law to not do so. Cookies, which track a user’s
comings and goings, are widely used by Google to track user behavior and target
ads, but this practice has been criticized as invasive of privacy. The
committee responsible for the report, known as the Working Party stated in the
report, "It is the opinion of the Working Party that search engines in
their role as collectors of user data have so far insufficiently explained the
nature and purpose of their operations to the users of their services.
The Working Party does not see a basis for a retention period beyond 6
months."

Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel issued a
statement Monday, taking issue with the findings. He stated, "We
believe that data retention requirements have to take into account the need to provide quality
products and services for users, like accurate search results, as well as
system security and integrity concerns."

If the EU chooses to legislate such actions, Google may have
its own day in court, like its rival Microsoft did over antitrust issues.

"The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." -- Robert Heinlein